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Portable Thunderbird has lost everything

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notjohncr2
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Portable Thunderbird has lost everything

Following a system crash and a disk system repair Thunderbird thinks that it running for the first time despite most of the installation looking fine on the disk. Looking at Thunderbird support it appears that one or more profile file needs replacing. Unfortunately the relevant files are in a structure that differs significantly between the standard and portable systems. Can anyone tell me which files need replacing?

John T. Haller
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Likely a Corrupt prefs.js

This is likely due to a corrupt prefs.js file. The same thing will happen on local. This file is located within ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile. There are often multiple backups labeled -1, -2, etc. Before doing anything, ensure you have backed up the Data directory to another disk which is error free. Then restore a backup of your prefs.js, preferably from a semi-recent backup you did of Thunderbird. This file doesn't change much usually except when you add/edit/delete accounts or make other settings changes. If you don't have any backups, try using one of the other built in backup files labeled -1, -2, etc. If those don't work, you'll need to manually recreate all your accounts by entering them and then manually copying your mail folders into the correct locations.

When using online guides on how to fix and reconstruct broken profile settings and mailboxes, they'll reference the folder location C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\????????.default. This is equivalent to ThunderbirdPortable\Data\profile.

Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!

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